I don’t really care whether Samuel Johnson, Gandhi or Truman said it, the truth of the statement still holds:

“The measure of a society is how it treats its weakest members”

So if you think privatisation of health and care services will improve the measure of our society in England, if you think private companies are going to help the NHS work better and care for the sick, the poor, the disabled and those with mental illness, just take a look at where it’s going at the moment.

A BBC Panorama programme tonight investigated if one of the government’s most ambitious welfare reforms, costing billions of pounds, could solve the problem of disability unemployment. Reporter Sam Poling revealed the private companies who are getting rich from the new reforms despite only being able to get a small fraction of disabled people back to work, and spoke to the charities who feel the most vulnerable in our society are being failed.